September 11, 2011

I haven't blogged in many months, but today is a day that cannot go by without notice. We were attacked by Al Qaeda on that day ten years ago - more specifically by 19 Saudi nationals - and Al Qaeda is still intent on more murderous attacks on our country. Although today's readings at Mass were all about forgiveness, my thoughts were on our servicemen and women who are waging war against Al Qaeda today. May God keep you all safe and may you smite that enemy, and then some. Today seemed like a good day to make a donation to Soldier's Angels, and so I did.

My thoughts and prayers go to all the people who lost family members and cherished friends on that day, and to the almost incomprehensibly brave first responders who perished on that day. My brain still can't wrap around firefighters climbing up into a skyscraper that was a burning inferno of jet fuel, heading up while thousands of people are frantically trying to get out of the burning building. There are no words for that bravery and committment to a higher cause, to the point of losing one's life.

We lost an aspiring firefighter on that day, carpenter Christpher Michael Kirby, then only 21. He was the son of a Bronx firefighter. I first learned about Chris five years ago when I participated in the 2996 project. He sounded like a truly wonderful soul, someone who lightened up the world for everyone around him, who made people laugh and smile. There aren't enough people like that, are there? To have lost "Happy" seems as awful today as it did ten years ago. May his memory and spirit live on in the hearts and minds of all who knew him. We can say prayers for the repose of his eternal soul, but my hunch is that God has already put him to use as a guardian angel for others.

We are living in a continuous state of apprehension, counting the days until the next attack and repeating the now-standard mantra that we will only unite more when — not if, but when — we’re hit again. That we’ll strike even harder, more righteously, and more effectively. We have spent a year failing to synchronize the necessary ideas with the necessary actions. Our borders remain scandalously porous: tuck a suitcase bomb into the truck of your car and drive right in from Canada. We delude ourselves by thinking that a photo ID is proof against evil intent. We allow our e-mails to be invaded by our dubiously named Department of Justice while nests of terrorists undoubtedly continue to thrive in our territory as they do in Europe. We countenance an absurd policy of "random" scrutiny of airplane passengers rather than engage in thoughtful profiling, lest we be accused of racism. Our president spends ample time cozying up to the smarmy representatives of the House of Saud — oil is king — while we require nothing of that monarchy by way of assisting us in locating terrorists. If anything is of use, we eschew it; if something is pointless but looks good on the evening news, we go with it. We have resolved nothing. We have managed to offend those we shouldn’t, like the Israelis, by excluding them entirely from our plans to confront Iraq, but not those we should, like the Pakistani government, which countenances terrorist encampments in its territory, and, again, the Saudis, who mount telethons to fund the families of homicide-bombers in Israel, blatantly giving their imprimatur to terrorism. To fear offending an enemy who took down the two towers of the World Trade Center, drilled a hole through the Pentagon, and left a death pit in Pennsylvania is a strange way to bind the nation’s wounds.

We did not come together after September 11. It wasn’t, even in the most metaphoric and hope-filled sense, "the best of times." It was the worst of times. Not solely because of the death and destruction of that day, but also because of what we’ve become in its aftermath: preposterously maudlin. Ineffectively incendiary. Painfully earnest. Muddled.

We are foolishly polite when we need to be fiercely determined. To give this vaunted "war on terrorism" legitimacy and determination and purpose, we might recall the words of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," written in 1861, during a time of national crisis like none we’ve seen till now. The Civil War was waged to save the republic; today’s war against Islamist terrorism must be waged to save Western civilization. It requires precisely, in Julia Ward Howe’s unparalled image, that "terrible swift sword."

February 21, 2011

This guy is one of my heroes, and he's speaking at Temple Ahavath Torah Congregation Synagogue in Stoughton, MA this Thrusday, February 24, 2011 at 7:30 PM. Only ten bucks a person! Steyn is a terrific, witty speaker, don't miss this opportunity to see him LIVE. Details:

Mark Steyn is an international best selling author, recording artist, and leading Canadian human rights activist. He will speak about "Relighting The Lamps of Liberty: Standing Up For Freedom In A Darkening World."

Steyn's book, America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It was a New York Times bestseller in the United States and a number one bestseller in Canada; his battles with the Canada Human Rights Commission are legendary and are explained in his book Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West.

Admission is $10 per person. A VIP Meet and Greet with Mark Steyn will be open to donors/sponsors of the event at $100 per person or $1000 per organization at 6:30pm.

My notes from a Mary Steyn lecture in 2007 here. Best quote from someone in the audience there: "He's a cross between Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Mel Brooks!"

"Unpublished Government research suggests the plastic carrier may not be an eco villain after all – but, whisper it, an unsung hero. Hated by environmentalists and shunned by shoppers, the disposable plastic bag is piling up in a shame-filled corner of retail history. But a draft report by the Environment Agency, obtained by the Independent on Sunday, has found that ordinary high density polythene (HDPE) bags used by shops are actually greener than supposedly low impact choices."

Of course it's the greenest - a plastic bag weighs a tiny fraction of either a cloth or paper bag. The energy required/emissions from the manufacture and the transportation of plastic bags are, accordingly, also a fraction of the energy/emissions for cloth or paper. Recycled paper bags are even worse than virgin paper bags. Paper fibers are shorter and weaker in recycled pulp, and so more of the pulp is needed to create a bag with the same strength as virgin paper. But alas, way too many environmentalists refuse to look at the engineering and science behind these issues.

"HDPE bags are, for each use, almost 200 times less damaging to the climate than cotton hold-alls favoured by environmentalists, and have less than one third of the Co2 emissions than paper bags which are given out by retailers such as Primark."

Huh, this report was commissioned in 2005, scheduled for release in 2007, and England's Environment Agency can't seem to publish the findings just yet......

"J.S. Bach's beautiful and timeless cantata "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit" (God's time is the very best time) will be presented as the prelude recital to the Sunday, November 7 Choral Evensong at Trinity Episcopal Church, 81 Elm Street in Concord, MA."

"... The cantata is presented at 5 PM in Trinity's main sanctuary; this is a FREE program, and the public is invited to attend."

"...Following the Bach cantata performance, The Trinity Parish Choir, will sing Choral Evensong for the Feast of All Saints in the intimate beauty of Trinity's main sanctuary. The Choir will sing the 'Magnificat' and 'Nunc dimittis' by Henry Purcell, the 'Responses' by Richard Ayleward, and 'Justorum animae' by William Byrd."

"All in the Greater Concord community are invited to attend this contemplative service of music and prayer; this event is FREE. For information on this and other Trinity music events, please call 978/369-3715 or visit us on line at http://www.trinityconcord.org."

September 10, 2010

Our hearts and prayers go out to all the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. I pray for the deceased, may their souls rest in eternal peace. I pray for all the orphans, widows, widowers, for all the families missing a cherished family member, for all the fire stations and police stations missing their brothers. ( Victor Davis Hansen wrote a wonderful tribute to the rescuers, "What Made Them Do It?".)

A special prayer goes out to the family and friends of Chris Michael Kirby, who would have been a 30-year old man this year, had he not been murdered that day. I was given Chris's name when I signed up to participate in the 2996 Project. The people who knew him all remarked upon his contagious smile and how he made every one around him laugh, no matter what the situation. He is sorely missed. May Chris's wonderful spirit live on in the hearts of all the people who knew him.

NEW DELHI: Indian Home Secretary GK Pillai on Monday revealed that Lashkar-e-Tayyaba founder Hafiz Saeed not only masterminded the Mumbai attacks but also made a trip to India and the government has given exact dates of his visit, to Islamabad. “We have evidence from Ajmal Kasab and others who say that he came here. Let Pakistan say that on such and such day, Hafiz Saeed was in Islamabad, not in India,” Pillai said. He, however, did not disclose the dates supposedly given to Pakistan in one of the dossiers. Pillai asserted that Saeed was not a peripheral player in 26/11, as he knew everything. He buttressed his claim with information provided by David Headley, who had collected information for the attacks during his five-day interrogation by the National Investigation Agency sleuths in a US prison. “When Headley had a difference with his wife, she went and complained to Saeed. She said, “This guy is neglecting me”. Headley told Saeed that if I spent more time with her, the ‘Bombay Project’ would suffer. Saeed replied, “Nothing doing, your wife can wait, the ‘Bombay Project’ is more important. So that is the kind of relationship and knowledge he had about the Bombay Project,” Pillai said.

This is a bad bad bill, another gargantuan overreach by our Congress, which continues its turbo-charged drive to push our county into economic hell that will likely take decades to recover from. Congress People, have you never heard of incremental change? How about reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are untouched by this bill? How about de-deregulating the banking and credit industries?

Senator Brown, we sent you to DC to starve the beast, not to feed the beast.

"We learned a simple thing this week: that the BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed."

"So while, for instance, the U.S. Coast Guard can accept such help as three kilometres of containment boom from Canada, they can't accept, and therefore don't ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand."

"....Now, an exemption can be granted even to the Jones Act: by executive order, all the way to the top. This was granted, promptly, by the Bush administration, when it was organizing the rescue arrangements that responsible local authorities had failed to provide, at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Which was, incidentally, a vastly larger environmental catastrophe than the piddling oil leak that now commands the news.

"But the Bush administration had a huge advantage over its successor. Bush had gone out of his way to find competent people, with experience of their fields, to staff his administration. Many were despised throughout the media for their known conservative tendencies, but what can you do?"

"...Bush had not, as his successor has, loaded up a ship of fools consisting of academic ideologues, under no particular direction from a captain who is himself off playing golf, and partying with America's coolest people. Which is exactly what Obama was doing for weeks after April 20, when Deepwater Horizon blew up; though to be fair we should also mention the fundraisers and commencement speeches. But there is little evidence that, away from his TelePrompTer, he does anything except appoint more fools to run the government for him."

Major zing.

BTW, I wouldn't call it a "piddling oil leak," but it can and will be largely remediated.

April 21, 2010

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser is a terrific,passionate speaker, and he's in Boston tomorrow to speak at the Ford Hall Forum about Islam and America. Details here:

Modern Islam:

Engaging questions of faith, fanatics, democracy, and reform

Mona Eltahawy, award-winning New York-based journalist and international lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues; Zuhdi Jasser, Founding Member and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), an American Muslim organization advocating for the separation of mosque and state; and Bilal Kaleem, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society of Boston, join moderator James Carroll, Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Suffolk University, recipient of the James Parks Morton Interfaith Award, and Boston Globe columnist, to address the questions facing Islam, America, and democracy in the twenty-first century.

Dr. Jasser is a wonderful speaker, I heard him at a forum at Tufts University some years back. I highly recommend attending this forum! Jasser should be quite an antidote to the Muslim American Society strand of Islamism so widespread in our society and media.

Mona Eltahawy is a journalist/writer, you can read her writings here. She spoke at an earlier Ford Hall Forum about three years ago. I was disappointed in her speech back then, which can be summarized as "there's no threat by radical Muslims in the US, it's just Islamophobia, the media only covers the angry bearded Muslims, don't worry - be happy." Will we just hear the same old/same old from Mona at Suffolk?

Bilal Kaleem is the face of the Muslim American Society/Islamic Society of Boston here in Boston. Smart guy (MIT grad), photogenic, courteous and affable, diligently promotes Islam. Kaleem is able to ignore that the parent organization of the MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, and that one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood's organization in the U.S.is Dr. Jamal Badawi, a trustee of the ISB. Kaleem's wife, BTW, is the Muslim chaplain at Wellesley College. The MAS has a strong presence in the Boston area colleges and in the leadership of several Muslim organizations, including mosques in Sharon, Worcester, Lowell and Revere.

April 15, 2010

I attended the Boston Tea Party yesterday. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and the large crowds (10,000 people? more?) were friendly and in high spirits. I missed Sarah Palin's speech, got there a little late. Who knew knew that the keynote speaker would be one of the first speakers?? However, from what I saw on the internet, I don't think I missed much there. As one prominent local tea partier wrote this this morning:

"I have to admit that I was underwhelmed by Sarah Palin. She was strident and loud and had nothing new to say. I'm disappointed that I felt that way, but there it is. Too much is at stake to be anything less than honest."

I totally agree. Sarah was a big draw and was probably largely responsible for the great turnout, but the speech itself sounded screechy. She strung together a lot of one-liners and platitudes, and that was about it. Not an inspiring speech.

Not to be too crabby, but the music was pretty hokey and out-of-place. What, the Tea Party Express couldn't find any local musicians? Where were the Dropkick Murphies??

End of complaints! I went there to be part of that crowd, to show the politicans and media that there are a great many people - people who weren't politically active until the Tea Party movement - who want the following things:

Are you Catholic and over the age of 18? Have you said the Rosary Prayer at least once in the past year? If so, please take part in an anonymous research study online that examines the place of the Rosary Prayer in Catholic individuals’ lives. To participate in this doctoral research study, click the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/rosaryprayer Participation is anonymous and free of charge.

"Towering at 6 ft 3 in (191 cm), Gaurav literally looks down on people. This young Gujarati convert was captivated by Christian music of the Renaissance era, and choral music awakened in him a quest for beauty. "

“....'The beauty of sacred music held me spellbound at my first ever experience of the Eucharist at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai on 15 August, Indian Independence Day and the Feast of the Assumption. The sublime music of the Mass undoubtedly assured me of God's presence; the Gregorian chants elevated my spirits, creating in me a sense of awe for the Sacred. I was instinctively drawn by the aesthetic beauty of the Eucharist and this experience filled my heart with immense joy.' ”

Please join us for a Concert to benefit A WOMAN'S CONCERN pregnancy resource centers.

AWC MUSIC FOR LIFE

Enjoy an elegant evening of classical and contemporary music in a historical setting for the benefit of women and couples who are making a choice for life. A dessert reception immediately following the concert. Seating begins at 7 pm

Tickets $40 in advance by April 19th or $50 at the door.

For more information or to buy tickets visit us at www.partners.awomansconcern.org/news/music_for_life

March 24, 2010

March 14, 2010

Don't let up your efforts to kill the health bill that the White House and Pelosi/Reid are trying to force on the American public, despite the fact that the majority of Americans (73%) are opposed to this monstrosity. Who would ever want Congress to control health care, which represents one-sixth of our exconomy?!

As Ed Morrissey of Hot Air said at a "Kill the Bill" rally in Minnesota over the weekend, this is "the most expansive government takeover attempt in our history." Once you enact massive entitlement programs, you simply can't go back, as we see with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The proposed "health care bill (AKA insurance company bail-out) is 1) way too expensive and 2) way too far-reaching.

The FAR better choice is to enact a series of incremental steps, including separating health care from employment, allowing health insurance companies to sell their coverage across state lines, and allowing companies to offer an array of coverages, not mandate what insurance companies must provide.

This deal is still in the works, and the American people (you and me!) must keep calling and writing our senators and representatives to let them know we want to Kill the Bill. Scrap it and start over. As the HillBuzz boyz say, "Not. This. Time.

Speakers:Mike German (Policy Counsel, Washington Legislative Office, American Civil Liberties Union ACLU). Mike German is a sixteen-year veteran of the FBI, where he served as a Special Agent in domestic terrorism, bank fraud and public corruption investigations. While at the FBI, German also served in undercover operations, successfully helping to prevent several terrorist attacks. He resigned in 2004 to make Congress and the public aware of the continuing deficiencies in FBI counterterrorism operations after the implementation of the 9/11 Commission’s reforms.

Carol Rose is the Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. A lawyer and journalist, Carol has spent her career advocating for human rights and civil liberties both in the United States and abroad, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Japan, Sri Lanka, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Northern Ireland, and Vietnam.

David Gersten (Acting Deputy Officer for Programs and Compliance, Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, US Department of Homeland Security) David Gersten normally holds the position of Director of the Programs Division for DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Before joining DHS, Mr. Gersten led customer service efforts for the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. Prior to his work at the Department of Education, he served as executive director of the Center for Equal Opportunity providing assistance and scrutiny for the public and private sector on immigration and assimilation policy making. Mr. Gersten also spent four years as director of education for an educational foundation dedicated to identifying, training and placing young people in public policy positions. He is the proud parent of five children including six year old triplets.

Juliette Kayyem (Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs, US Department of Homeland Security) Juliette N. Kayyem was appointed as Massachusetts’ first Undersecretary for Homeland Security by Gov. Deval L. Patrick in January 2007. When appointed by Governor Patrick, she became the first Arab-American to serve as a homeland security advisor at the state level. As undersecretary, she has been responsible for developing statewide policy on homeland security and specifically focused on preventing, protecting, responding to, and recovering from any and all critical incidents. Undersecretary Kayyem focused much of her time on coordinating efforts across local, state and federal entities.

March 09, 2010

I've got my ear to the ground to hear what has become of former Sharon imam Muhammed Masood, who was "voluntarily deported" back to Pakistan in Ocotber 2008. Masood was first picked up by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in November 2006. (Previous blogposts here.) He was arrested on criminal visa fraud charges in August 2007, and he pleaded guilty to five fraud charges in February 2008.

According to my sources, Hafiz Muhammed Masood is back in Lahore, Pakistan, where he is the imam of an important mosque in Lahore controlled by Jamat e Dawa (the new face of the terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba). Masood reportedly recently celebrated a second marriage to a lady in Lahore. It was quite a big event, I'm told.

Masood's lawyer said this of Masood back in Ocotber 2008, "He is totally petrified of going back to Pakistan." And "he was heartbroken about leaving his wife and eight children and returning to a country where he could be in danger because he preached peace in the United States, said his lawyer, Norman S. Zalkind of Boston." Sounds like Masood is doing just fine though. What do his interfaith supporters in Sharon think of the second wife? What do his own wife and children think?

Meanwhile, Masood's first (?) wife and family are still living in the Islamic Center of New England estate in Sharon, MA, and they are facing deportation charges too. The family applied for political asylum in the U.S., but it was denied. How do you say "chutzpah" in Urdu? That deportation case continues.